Some Story Fodder

As I write this, it's well after midnight. (I'm a night owl, if you didn't already guess.) It's beginning to rain again, and it's about as cold as West Africa gets. I think it's below seventy now. I'm shivering, anyway. I'll probably have to sleep with a sheet to stay warm. (We generally don't use any blankets here. Only sheets, when it gets cold on nights like tonight.)

Earlier, I had finished Robert Liparulo's Dreamhouse Kings series. (If you haven't read them, go and do so. Delicious thrills and adventure await you.) And I was working on a short story, some, too.

So I wrote a poem about it, as I'm wont to do. I found that, in writing the poem, I had made a comment on thoughts I didn't know I was thinking. Read it, and then I'll expand upon it.

Nights Like These

Rustling leaves, distant thunder booming

The moon hides in darkness, rain is looming

Through the window, cool air shivers

A taste of thrill turns into rivers.

The night is dark and clouds are groaning

The trees are cold and the wind is moaning

Inside, you catch the delicious breeze—

Stories were made for nights like these.

There are certain settings that seem to spark a writer's imagination, and tonight was one of them. There's just something electric in the air that makes us want to write it down. Sometimes we don't. And sometimes those things are different for each person. For instance, there are few things that inspire me like my home state of Kansas. I can't get enough of it—wheat fields, long pastures, old farmhouses, and whatnot.

But I think that some settings inspire on a more universal level.

Ooh, thunder...

So here's some food to fuel your story. This doesn't really serve any specific purpose, but it's good to get the imagination pumping every once and a while. That's when you get your best ideas.

Now....

Imagine you're on an abandoned street. It's cold. There's a lot of wind, buffeting you back and forth, whispering down the concrete sidewalk and murmuring in the grass. Enough wind that you wouldn't be able to hear if someone was walking nearby. But there's no moon, so when hearing fails you, sight won't do much either. All you can do is glance around you, but it's so dark that you wouldn't be able to see if someone was standing five feet away from you. Or watching you. It's the kind of night where every rustle is a footstep, and every creak is someone out to get you.

You shiver. Something moves in the darkness. The wind? An animal? Or something else?

What are you doing? Why are you there? IS there someone out to get you? And what are you going to do about it?

(*evil chuckle*)

I'm under the influence of Liparulo, anyway. I should probably go sleep it off. But it's kind of exciting (in a freaky way), jumping when doors creak open or when something bangs down the hall.

Yeah, I need to go to bed. ^_^

Oh, hurrah, it started raining again!

Don't you miss pointless and rambly posts by yours truly? (Yes, I know, rambly isn't a word. Your point is?) The world is better off without them—rambly posts—but sometimes I must ramble. It's in my blood.

All right, I'm really going to bed this time.

Good night, blog readers. May rain ever fall on your nightly roofs.